Pre-nostalgic Nostalgia

Not about being a writer or a blogger; I am still neither of those things. Also not about not knowing what it is I actually do or what my life is anymore – both of those realities remain very much intact.

Rather, I lied about why I’m doing this. I’ve never done a blog or written anything just for myself; I’ve always been paid to write. When you are paid to write there are angles, directives, mass editing and re-writes. When you write for yourself there doesn’t have to be any of those things; you can just write. Write for an audience. Or not. Write about interesting things. Or not. The beauty of a blog is it can be about anything you want and that provides a freedom not often found in the professional sphere.

This too, however, is smoke and mirrors on my part. None of those things are why I’ve decided to finally start a blog. Granted, I am doing this for myself. Just not for present day me. I’m writing today for Andrew three years ago as well as for Andrew three months from now and beyond.

Confused? I should hope so.

Those who have lived abroad for any amount of time will understand and those that haven’t, and I’m truly sorry, won’t. This is the catch-22 of living abroad, especially if done alone. On those occasions when you go home for vacation – or once you return home for good – friends and family are keen and interested in your stories lived in that far-off land. None of them understand those stories, though; they can’t. This is a topic for another day – check back, or don’t, when that post goes up.

While the notion of my family and good friends at home not understanding what I’ve done abroad –and leaving behind in Costa Rica the only people that do – is simultaneously sad and clique-like, this is neither a new notion to me nor the motive behind my sudden dive into the blogosphere.

Why am I doing this? Simply put: to remind myself.

I recently made the decision that I am going to move on from Costa Rica. After three-plus years here, needless to say it was not an easy decision. Having made it, though, I can’t help but look back on the past three years with a myriad of emotion about my time in this beautiful country. With just over three months left living in la pura vida (I’ve schedule a mid-December departure) I’ve also started compiling a Costa Rica bucket list of pending things I still need to experience – but, again, that’s another post.

Having spent the majority of last week with one of my best friends in this country – a journalist from Texas who, after four-plus years here, is also leaving for greener pastures – reminiscing about the last three years of our friendship and our combined experiences living in Costa Rica, we realized, as we each recalled incidents and retold stories that the other had forgotten, that there are gaps in our timeline.

I hate that. I hate having gaps. I hate not remembering. I would hate that three months from now – and for the years to come – that for as silly a reason as not taking the time to document the meaningful and otherwise that happened in my time here I would forget some really cool things.

We each looked at some old photos and played the ‘Remember that?!’ game. Three years (four for him) is a good chunk of time and naturally there will be gaps in recollection.

So here we are.

Costa Rica has meant so much to me. In many ways I grew up here. It has given me many things that I never thought possible. I owe it to her to remember every detail.

Like my life this space won’t remain solely about Costa Rica. But there will always be a little bit of her in each and every post. After this long of a relationship, we are indebted to the other.